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If they go this far, it won't be a surprise if all of their articles is AI garbage

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[-] rainwall@piefed.social 205 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Gamerant is owned by Valent, which bought out and owns all the following:

Android Police, Comic Book Resources, Collider, Hardcore Gamer, MovieWeb, OpenCritic, Screen Rant, Game Rant, DualShockers, TheGamer, XDA Developers, How-To Geek, GiveMeSport, And Polygon

All of the above, and I mean all of them, had huge layoffs and pivoted to AI articles and adhoc underpaid contractors:

previous and current Valnet employees claim the company prioritizes "mass quantity over quality to churn out mind-numbing SEO bait." Once websites are acquired by Valnet, the permanent staff are usually replaced by contractors, who are paid significantly less (reportedly around $19 for 1000 words at GameRant[3]) than the former tenured staff. One former contributor described Valnet website Collider to TheWrap as "a content mill, borderline like almost sweatshop-level", while another writer suggested that Valnet forced contractors to create "junky clickbait" content. Valnet writers who complain about payment, working conditions, or reveal payment rates are alleged to be blacklisted by the company

[-] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Oh that explains a bit!

I'm guessing they more or less get their marching orders from the ESA, the corrupt lying political lobby of AAA video game companies... the AIPAC of the gaming world, if you would.

[-] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago
[-] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 hours ago

It feels like almost everyone who made a career on the internet in the 20-teens has sold their brand to private equity

[-] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

I agree. Seems like all media is going this way… No good things last forever is certainly more true than false these days.

[-] jtrek@startrek.website 73 points 1 day ago

You shouldn't be allowed to own that much stuff. Simple solution.

[-] raman_klogius@ani.social 44 points 1 day ago

Thankfully there's the FTC and its antitrust law! /$

XDA

Holy fucking shit no wonder it appears that they sold out

Cause they DID.

[-] DevDave@piefed.social 45 points 1 day ago

ah man that sucks. I kinda like XDA and polygon.

[-] thenoirwolfess@fedinsfw.app 28 points 1 day ago

Yeah XDA is (or I guess, was) invaluable for custom ROMs for Android. There's a huge modding/coding community on XDA.

[-] Dhs92@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago

Sadly the wild west days of custom ROMs is mostly over :(

[-] grue@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago

You say "wild west" as if they were doing something uncivilized, but running the code you choose is nothing more than exercising your property rights.

The marginalization/destruction of custom ROMs isn't civilization catching up, it's totalitarianism closing in.

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Camera: broken

Wifi radio: broken

Accelerometer broken: WIP no ETA.

Bugs: you tell me

Think this is what they meant

[-] DevDave@piefed.social 8 points 1 day ago

Another way of viewing the use of "wild west" was exactly that, the lack of over regulation and a more hands off government. In reality it wasn't the utopia some want to make it out to be as slang like "snake oil salesmen" alludes.

[-] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 0 points 1 day ago

Meh, the scene for custom softwares on PS2s, phones, psps, PS3 Emulation, etc are still going strong. We only really just figured out how to emulate the PS3 a couple of years ago.

[-] despoticruin@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago

XDA has gotten so much worse in the last 6 months it is astounding. Some unreal work is being done to kill custom android ROMs.

[-] ignirtoq@feddit.online 24 points 1 day ago

Valnet writers who [...] reveal payment rates are alleged to be blacklisted by the company

That sounds flat out illegal.

[-] LePoisson@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Oooh that's why all their articles in my feed are utter garbage, made the mistake of clicking a few and my god my phones built in feed is now inundated.

Like I mean easy to ignore and I don't even know if video game "journalism" even counts as something worth reading most of the time anyways not that kind of blows.

[-] kazerniel@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago
[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

is this why xda became shit?

[-] QuandaleDingle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I had to double take at freaking XDA!!! I had no idea.

[-] Turret3857@infosec.pub 4 points 1 day ago

XDA ? Do they run the forums as well or?

[-] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago
[-] rainwall@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Its a qoute from the link in my comment under "reception."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valnet

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
779 points (98.6% liked)

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